


A Day in the Life of a Cook

by Sarcasticles



Category: One Piece
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen, Potty-mouth Sanji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 01:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11151741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarcasticles/pseuds/Sarcasticles
Summary: The Straw Hat Pirates have no idea how much it takes to feed them, and Sanji is determined to keep it that way





	A Day in the Life of a Cook

4:57 AM

His day begins before everyone else's.

It's a little before five in the morning as Sanji adjusts his tie. The reflection in the mirror glowers irritably back at him. A cigarette will change that, but not until he gets out of the men's quarters. The weather had been unpredictable even by Grand Line standards as of late, and Nami-dearest said they should be reaching an island later in the day. The others need their rest, and Chopper especially is sensitive to the smell of smoke.

Sanji passes Brook on his way out the door. He and the skeleton share a sleep schedule for the most part, and they exchange tired nods. It's too damn early for greetings. God what he wouldn't do for another hour or two of sleep…

His hands go instinctively to his pocket. It's been a long time since they've been on dry ground, and he's running low on smokes. He'll have to conserve if he wants to make it through the morning, but that doesn't stop him from lighting up as he leans over the railing, mentally reviewing the day's menu. If they were going to hit land then it would be best to have an early lunch. Something light. Sanji knew most of the crew—himself included—liked to sample the local cuisine on the islands they visit, so it wouldn't do to be overfull.

He had to do something big for supper, then. Sanji flicks ash off the end of his cigarette as he ponders. His inventory isn't bad, but he doesn't think he has enough for a Luffy-sized feast. He'd have to squeeze some grocery shopping in with his sightseeing.

6:35 AM

The Straw Hat Pirates wake to the smell of bacon. Luffy can barely contain himself long enough to put on a fresh pair of underpants before he's launching himself into the kitchen. He's greeted with a black shoe to the face.

"Out," Sanji barks, as he does every morning.

"But I'm hungry!"

"You're always hungry," Sanji says, but hands him two apples anyway.

"This isn't real food," Luffy whines. "I want bacon!"

The Straw Hat's resident cook sighs, swallowing arguments about balanced nutrition and going straight for the time-honored tradition of kicking his captain's ass back onto the deck. He captures a glimpse of the shitty moss head in the middle of a workout before he slams the door shut again.

It's not that Sanji is jealous—because why would he be jealous of an ape growing grass from his head?— but at times he wished there were more hours in the day so he, too, could dedicate himself to honing the martial art he was best known for.

7:00 AM

"It's sweet," Chopper says, his already-wide eyes expanding further than should be humanly possible. The youngest Straw Hat takes another bite of bacon and wiggles with pleasure. "I've never had bacon that's sweet before!"

Sanji opens his mouth to explain the process of making candied bacon when Robin asks for another cup of coffee. He rushes to do her bidding while passionately pledging to walk to the ends of the earth to fulfill her every desire, and after that the moment is lost. Everyone is too busy protecting their plates from their gluttonous captain to listen to how their breakfast came to be.

Despite his appetite it's not Luffy's favorite, but Sanji knew that before he started prepping for the meal. Luffy is quite vocal about having his meat taste like meat, damn it, and anything else is a travesty. But with eight other people in the crew Sanji can't cater every meal to the incredibly unrefined palate of his captain, and it _had_ been a long time since he'd made anything especially for Chopper…

The doctor reaches for thirds, and Sanji can't help but smile.

10:14 AM

After breakfast comes clean-up, and after clean-up comes lists. More specifically, grocery lists. At ten o'clock Nami finds Sanji sitting at the galley table snubbing a cigarette into an overflowing ashtray as he scratches out another line on the piece of parchment that lays in front of him. With a muttered curse he squeezes something into what little space remains on the page.

"How's it going?" Nami asks.

"Fucking _terrible_." His hand makes a movement to his breast pocket, as if going for another cigarette, but it stops. He whirls so quickly he almost knocks his chair over. "Nami-dearest! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize it was you."

Nami laughs, and he would have sworn it was the most beautiful sound in the world. "What's your budget looking like? I think we should land a little after noon, and I was getting allowances ready."

Sanji's stomach curls a little as she picks up his list. As expected, all the laughter leaves the resplendent jewels that are her eyes, a crease forming in her alabaster brow.

"Triple-A grade cream? You want to buy three cartons of real Triple-A grade cream? Do you know how much that stuff costs?"

"Y-yes, my sweet," he says with unusual timidly.

"Sanji, I know you need quality ingredients, but that alone will double what I usually give you."

His shoulders slump. He won't— _can't_ —argue with her. Nami, multitalented as she is, can cook, but she is not a chef. And while he also knows that she hasn't forgotten Usopp's upcoming birthday, Nami wasn't aware that Sanji spent two weeks developing a cake recipe he's sure their resident sharpshooter will love. He needs that cream. There is no substitute, just like Nami settles for nothing less than the best papers and inks to make her maps.

It's expensive, and damn it all if Sanji didn't know that already. He spent ten years of his life living in a restaurant, and Zeff taught him more than how to gut a fish. Most places closed their doors after less than a year, and being out on the open sea the Baratie ran into more expenses than most. But somehow it's different here. _Harder_. Sanji never knows how much money he's going to get or how far he'll have to stretch his larder. He is responsible for the health and wellbeing of eight other people, and though Luffy is the worst of them all _none_ of them are light eaters.

Nami must sense his misery, because her expression softens. "I'll give you twenty-five percent more than usual. Usopp and Luffy have been fishing recently anyway, so it's not like you'll need a lot of meat."

There is always the need for more meat, but Sanji doesn't contradict her. He's too busy gushing her praises to notice.

1:30 PM

The island is small, a mere pit stop between the more famous Water 7 and Fishman Island, but no less interesting because of it. The little town the Straw Hat Pirates visit has character, and as Sanji walks down the cobblestone streets he tries his damndist to soak it all in.

He's doubly blessed when Nami and Robin decide to accompany him, at least for the time being. Robin—wise, mature, worldly—notes almost immediately that the clothing stores that interested the women were located near the farmer's market that Sanji so desperately needs to visit.

For such company, he's willing to delay his trip to the tobacco outlet, although he nearly strangles his captain when Luffy decides to tag along as the fourth wheel. His attempt to foist the straw-hatted fool on Franky is foiled by the lure of food, even though the cyborg's trip to the junkyard holds the promise of childish adventure that Luffy so often craves.

Instead it is Usopp who accompanies Franky, while Brook makes sure Zoro actually gets it to the swordsmith. Chopper is low on rumble balls and volunteers to stand watch over the ship, and it's a sign to how far he's come that no one doubts his ability to do so.

The day is crisp and clear, the sky a bright blue without a cloud in sight. Sanji saunters between the two female Straw Hats with his hands in his pockets while blocking out the obnoxious noise his captain's making, pretending it's just Nami, Robin, and himself on an afternoon stroll through the city, when he smells it: beef, poultry, fish. Fresh-baked bread and a dozen different spices. The sweet tang of ripe fruit and the sharp brine of saltwater.

 _Food_.

Though Sanji knows he's eaten and not hungry, an old, dormant monster roars in his belly. His mouth fills with saliva, and immediately he's reaching for a cigarette. It's his last, but Sanji doesn't care. He won't lose his composure. Not today when he's graced by the presence of his two beloved angels.

He takes a deep drag, and almost immediately the nicotine dulls the edge, and he's able to grin at some macabre comment his Robin-darling deems worth sharing. Sanji took up smoking at a young age first to look like an adult, then to help deal with the stress of the kitchen, only to find out years later that cigarettes also suppress the appetite.

Not that he needs the help. Not anymore. Long gone were the days of hoarding food, the instinct to eat as much as he could as quickly as he could as often as he could, the primal fear of starvation. But every once in a while it…it sneaks up on him. Catches him by surprise and brings up the nightmare that lasted for more than eighty days that manages to haunt him even now.

Cigarettes dull his sense taste and stop up his lungs with tar and smoke, but they also help, and he has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

1:42 PM

"Ooh…what are those?"

Sanji looks up from the vegetable stall and searches for his captain. He is both on a mission and a limited budget and is ready to spring into action to keep Luffy from spoiling either. Luckily Robin also hears the danger and with the help of an arm or three manages to prevent one of the most notorious rookies in the world from stuffing his face full of meat pie.

Meat pie. Sometimes Sanji can't believe that's the sort of idiot he chose to follow.

"Go ahead and try one," the pie saleswoman says, eyes twinkling like a thousand stars on a moonless night. "Free samples today only!"

"Did someone say free samples?" Nami-dearest asks while Luffy grabs two of the savory treats.

"Yep! My shop's opening tomorrow, so I wanted to give everyone a little taste of what they're missing out on," the woman explains, handing a pie to both Nami and Robin while also managing to deftly slap Luffy away from thirds. Sanji's already-enormous respect for her grows.

Robin takes a polite nibble, and her eyes grow a fraction of an inch. "It's quite good."

"No kidding," Nami agrees, chewing thoughtfully. "It's different than what I'm used to. Good, but different."

The challenge couldn't have rung clearer had Nami outright said they were the best meat pies she'd ever tasted. Abandoning the vegetables for the time being, Sanji saunters over and gives the food an appraising glance. The stall is clean, well put together and aesthetically pleasing. The woman offers him a winning smile that almost turns him into mush and hands him a pie.

It's still warm and the crust has the exact perfect amount of flakiness. The other Straw Hats watch as Sanji takes a bite, and flavor explodes in the cook's mouth. He's eaten his fair share of meat pies over the years, but none have tasted like this.

"Sage," Sanji says, his eyes narrowing in concentration. "And…cloves? Where did you learn to put spices in like this?"

"You know your stuff," the woman says, two spots of pink forming on her cheekbones. "And that's a trade secret."

"You can tell Sanji," Luffy says. "We're just pirates."

"What the numbskull means to say," Nami interjects as the pie woman pales, "is that we're just passing through. We're not competition."

Sanji is too distracted to notice the woman's relief. He's too busy trying to figure out how she managed to elevate a pedestrian, workman's food into something almost divine. "I never would have thought to season the meat like this," he muses to nobody in particular.

"It's like Alabasta's meat," Luffy says. Somehow in all the discussion he manages to sneak another pie and is chewing with his mouth open.

"That's it exactly!" Sanji exclaims. "The flavor profiles are almost exactly the same to beef dish Terracotta served during the third course the day after the rebellion."

"I don't remember that one," Luffy says.

"You were unconscious still," Sanji says dismissively. He turns his attention to the woman selling the pies. "Did you import your spices all the way from Alabasta?" he asks as forcefully as possible without actually demanding an answer.

Her eyebrows rise in surprise. "Well, actually…" she launches into a longwinded story of how she moved to this piece of shit island shortly after the drought started. Sanji listens intently as she described in almost painful detail how the local spices were simply nothing like the ones back home, and how a plea to her brother back at the capital eventually led to her opening her own business selling the food she loved. The tale naturally evolved into a heated discussion comparing the quality of spices across the various islands of the Grand Line, and the next time Sanji looked up more than an hour had passed and Nami and Robin where nowhere to be seen.

"They decided you were going to take a while and left to go shopping," Luffy says with a shrug when Sanji asks. "Dunno why. That lady was way more interesting than clothes."

And if Sanji noticed the woman had no more complimentary pies after their discussion, he had the decency not to mention it.

6:59 PM

Supper is almost late. Sanji's talk put him behind schedule and he barely finished his shopping when it was time to return to the ship. There was no time to buy cigarettes, and by the time he sets the table he's going on six hours without a smoke.

Wine for Robin-dearest. Orange smoothie for Nami-sweet. Milk for Brook, cola for Franky, saki for the coniferous ape, juice for Chopper, rum for Usopp and Luffy, and black tea for himself. Sanji curses up a storm as he plates the meal: spicy shrimp pasta with a white wine sauce. It's one of Sanji's specialties and a crew favorite, but he's almost _late_ , an almost unheard of notion when there's been no foul weather and no shitty marines to bump him off schedule.

"What's the hold up, Curly Brow?" Zoro asks as the crew saunters into the galley.

"Shut up, shit head," Sanji snaps back without breaking his rhythm. Each step is calculated and graceful, looking more like a dance than the mad rush it truly was to make sure his crew was happy and full. Luffy laughs and says that he's hungry, and maybe it's the lack of nicotine, but it bothers Sanji more than usual.

But he doesn't argue. Not when it comes to food. If his captain says that he's hungry, it is Sanji's duty to make sure he's fed. Food was the sacred, almost mystical thing that brought the Straw Hat Pirates together as one after a long day scattered among the four winds. Usopp is too busy telling Chopper some ridiculous lie about the junkyard to notice when Sanji serves his plate, Brook and Luffy too deep into a competition to see who could stick their chopsticks further up their nose (although, Brook didn't technically have a nose…). Nami and Franky were arguing about the best way to get to Fishman Island while Robin mediated, and Zoro…Zoro was drinking.

But then all at once, as if by magic, they were eating, with Sanji rushing back and forth for drinks or seconds or dessert or whatever it took to keep them happy for this short period of time, because more than anything else in the world, that was what Sanji lived for.

12:00 AM

His day ends after everybody else's.

Sanji loosens his tie as the clock strikes twelve. Another day is gone, and what he wouldn't do for a smoke. It's another two days until the log sets, so barring bad fortune or unforeseen circumstances there is still time to buy more, but that does little to help him now. Slumping down into his hammock, he tries to keep his fingers from twitching and his toes from tapping. He's almost lost without the controlled insanity of the kitchen. There's the feeling that he should be doing something, anything to prepare for tomorrow, next week, next month…

"San'i?" There's no mistaking Luffy's sleepy murmur, and instantly Sanji's on the alert, ready to make a midnight sack for his captain.

"Yeah? What do you want?"

"Nothin'. Just wanted to let you know I found this tryin' to break into the fridge."

Sanji barely has time to register the sound of something flying through the air when a small box smacks him right between the eyes. His curse is cut short when his fumbling hands wrap around the contours of the package of cigarettes.

"Thank you, God," Sanji breathes as he bolts upright, ready to run out to the deck once more.

"An' Sanji?" Luffy calls.

"Yes?"

"I like your pie crust better. That lady didn't have enough butter in hers. Can you make meat pie tomorrow?"

Sanji smiles, surprised yet somehow unsurprised that Luffy would notice a stupid little thing like that.

"Of course, Captain."

 


End file.
